Instagram has more than 90 million monthly users and is still seeing "very
strong growth", the company has said.

Following reports from third-party analytics firms suggesting that Instagram's user numbers had collapsed at the end of last year, the photo-sharing service has released its own numbers for the first time.

Instagram has 90 million active users each month and 40 million photos are shared on the service per day. The company, which was bought by Facebook last year, also revealed that Instagram members make 1,000 comments and 8,500 'likes' every second.

“Instagram continues to see very strong growth around the world,” Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, told technology news site AllThingsD. He added: "We’ve been excited to see these efforts resonate with users globally.”

The publication of the user data follows a row last month over Instagram's terms and conditions. Instagram published new terms that appeared to give the site ownersip of members' photos, as well as granting them the right to use them in advertising.

The new terms provoked angry responses from many users, some of whom closed their accounts. Instagram later withdrew the terms, saying that they had been 'misinterpreted' and would be re-written.

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Systrom told members: "The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question."

Following the row, reports emerged earlier this month claiming that Instagram had seen a significant drop in usage. However, if such a decline had occured, it could be attributable to a change in habits around Christmas or just in natural fluctuations in day-to-day usage.

Instagram said it had in fact seen usage increase by 10 per cent from December to January.